Three Estonian animated shorts picked for prestigious French competition
Ülo Pikkov’s "Tühi ruum" ("Empty Room"), Chintis Lundgren’s "Manivald" and the Swedish-Estonian "Amalimbo," animated by Estonian Roland Seer, were selected for the short film competition of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
The Annecy International Film Festival, which will take place from June 12-17, is the world's most prestigious animated film festival. This year, 2,800 animated films were submitted for competition, and 87 films were chosen for the festival's short film competition.
Ülo Pikkov’s animated documentary "Tühi ruum" ("Empty Room"), produced by Nukufilm, won Best Animated Film at Estonia's inaugural Estonian Film and Television Awards (EFTA) last Saturday. The film animates the story of a one-time dream, apartment and little girl who lived and played there — a story seen by a father who hid himself in a potato cellar, reconstructed with a background of the Soviet societal oppression of 1950. "Tühi ruum" has previously won a Golden Gunnar for Best Short Film at Norway's Fredrikstad Animation Festival, the largest animated film festival in Scandinavia.
Chintis Lundgren’s cartoon "Manivald," an Estonian-Croatian-Canadian co-production, talks about an increasingly common phenomenon today — “adult children” who do not want to move out of home. It was produced by Estonia’s Chintis Lundgreni Animatsioonistuudio, Croatia’s Adriatic Animation and the National Film Board of Canada. The world premiere of "Manivald" is set to take place in competition at Animafest in Zagreb in early June, shortly before the Annecy festival.
"Amalimbo" was written and directed by Juan Pablo Libossart, an Argentinian living in Stockholm; its artist and lead animator was Estonian and Tartu resident Roland Seer. The 15-minute fantasy-genre film tells the story of Tipuana, a five-year-old girl who experiences "the limbo" when she tries to pass on to "the other side" in her desperate urge to mourn the recent death of her beloved father. The 2D animated short was produced by Fasad and Fork Film.
In 2016, "Amalimbo” was the third Estonian film in history to be selected for the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the European Film Awards in the Best Short Film category. This year, it was also selected to Göteborg Film Festival, Scandinavia’s largest film festival, as well as short and animated film festival competitions in Nijmegen, Barcelona, Lisbon, Vilnius and Zagreb.
Trailers
"AMALIMBO" - Trailer (ENG subtitles) from Fork Film on Vimeo.
TÜHI RUUM TREILER from Nukufilm on Vimeo.
Editor: Aili Vahtla